Lipstick Courage
by ForASecondThereWe'dWon
Summary: Still on summer holidays, Betty's already getting back into a routine as she prepares for what's sure to be a torturous early River Vixens practice. Lucky for her, Jughead's come over to help out. This is an M-rated addition to the stories I've written for NeonDomino's Bingo Challenge. You can find my entries of a lighter rating under the title "Numbering Their Days."


**Author's Note**

This story is part of NeonDomino's Bingo Challenge, specifically a response to prompt #7: (Word) Breeze. If you're interested in reading the other (read: non-M-rated) stories I've written for this challenge, you'll find them collected under the title "Numbering Their Days."

Enjoy!

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

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"So, 'easy' and 'beautiful' I get, but what's 'breezy' supposed to signify?"

Betty shifted her eyes from her own reflection to Jughead's rather than turning around at her vanity. He was on his back, sprawled across her bed, with his head hanging over to observe her upside down.

"You know, this isn't exactly what I was expecting when you said you wanted to come over to help me get ready."

"Well, would you have let me come over otherwise?"

Betty shrugged, reaching for her mascara, then refocusing on her almost-finished face.

"Probably not, but you shouldn't have deceived me."

She finished one row of lashes and flicked her eyes over to see Jughead's expression in her mirror. He looked pained. Betty knew he was mortally afraid of the mascara wand and how near it got to her eyeball.

"Oh Betty," Jughead sighed, then groaned, struggling to flip onto his stomach without taking his eyes off her reflection, "I only lie when I know it'll work."

Lashes uniformly blackened, Betty screwed the tube back together and rolled her eyes. Jughead's mindless chatter was fun sometimes―it was interesting when he sort of unscrewed the lid of his brain and let the unfiltered observations pour out―but Betty was already anticipating mindless chatter today, and a lot of it. She reached up, twisting her fingers into the hollow core of her spiraling ponytail, which had been refortified by a dizzying cloud of hairspray. That was the thing about being in Cheryl Blossom's presence for too long: the girl kept her eyes peeled for even the tiniest flaw.

Betty's mother, Alice, had made a final attempt that morning to dissuade her from attending mid-holiday, pre-season Vixens tryouts, but Betty had held firm, giving the shortest answers possible until both parents were out the door, in the car, and on the way to The Register. Cheryl was truly a horrible girl, slippery and manipulative when not outright abusive. Unfortunately (in some ways), Betty really loved being a River Vixen, and if extra summertime practices and multiple rounds of cuts to whittle this year's hopefuls down to a Cheryl-approved squad were what she had to endure to get there... well, she would find a way to get through it.

Betty sighed just thinking about it. It was barely after lunch now and she had a few hours until she needed to leave to meet the girls at Riverdale High. The only thing Cheryl had insisted on that actually made sense was late afternoon to evening hours for these summer practices to avoid the hottest part of the day. Betty was fairly certain it wasn't for their benefit though. Brainstorming possible reasons _sotto voce_ with V later might be just the thing to help them slog through whatever torturous drills Cheryl had in store. _Possibility number one_ , Betty thought, _Cheryl is a vampire who uses suicide runs to discover which of her prey have the greatest stamina, so that she may drink the blood of only the strongest among them_.

"God," Betty moaned, dropping her forehead to the surface of her vanity just carefully enough not to smudge her makeup, "Juggy, promise you'll stake me if Cheryl doesn't finish the job."

He didn't laugh, but she knew he would be grinning.

"Come on, Betts. Cheryl's not a vampire."

Betty smiled to herself, knowing Jughead's statement, made with so much self-assurance, would definitely be followed up by a crazy theory that outdid her own.

"And we know this because…?" she prompted him, keeping her head down. Betty heard her bed shift as Jughead got up and felt his hands on her shoulders seconds later.

"Because of the good old Blossom family business." Jughead's hands slid around until his arms were crossed over her collarbones and his palms rested on her opposite shoulders. "It's far more likely that she's some kind of syrup-worshipping pagan," he said next to her ear, then kissed her cheek.

She felt him lay the side of his face on her shoulder and she turned to look at him.

"It'll be fine, Betty. Cheryl's a monster, but a human one at least."

"Ok, ok. Now go sit down and don't crowd me. I have to finish getting ready." Betty made motions to shoo him away, her cheeks reddening at his closeness. It was one thing to have Jughead over to hang out while her parents were at work. It was another to have him wrapped around her like this, especially in her bedroom.

"Are you cutting short my pep talk?" Jughead pulled back, running his hands on a reverse route over her shoulders, bare in the pale blue tank top she was wearing until she changed into her River Vixens uniform from last year, which Cheryl had unsuccessfully tried to bully her into returning.

"Do I seem _that_ pathetic that you really think I need one?" she replied.

Betty raised her head in time to see Jughead's frown reflected in the mirror. He held onto her and swiveled her, and the chair she sat on, around to face him.

"If I thought you were weak, I'd be encouraging you to run _away_ from Cheryl, not towards her." Jughead crossed his arms loosely, casual even when annoyed.

"Well, it'll probably be mostly tumbling and cartwheeling rather than running…" Betty struggled to contain her smirk as Jughead tipped his head back heavily and groaned. She reached out and grabbed his hand, locking their fingers together securely. He looked down at her, a reassuring smile edging up his cheek.

"You'll be fine."

"I'll be fine," Betty repeated.

Jughead nodded sharply and walked backwards to her bed, sitting when his legs hit mattress. Betty spun in her chair and narrowed her eyes at her reflection, willing that glass girl to believe her words. Part of the problem was that she still looked nervous. Veronica would probably say she needed liquid courage, but Betty wasn't much of a drinker since the apocalyptic night of Jughead's birthday. What Betty needed was _lipstick_ courage. She opened the top drawer of her vanity and probed deep in the back with her fingers, extracting a narrow tube her mother would've loved to relegate to the trash―if her mother had known about it. As she twisted it up, revealing a dark, satiny red, she listened to Jughead's low chatter behind her.

"Really though… 'breezy'? Like CoverGirl's makeup is so magical it'll feel like the wind applied it by blowing across your face, like you're living in fucking Narnia?"

Betty laughed softly, leaning forward towards the mirror and angling her arm. The pose felt so natural. Putting on lipstick was one thing she'd loved to do since she was a little girl. One of the few useful, non-harmful things she'd learned from mimicking her mother.

"I mean, I guess it's just supposed to be like the phrase 'it's a breeze,' implying something's easy… but then why do we say _that_?"

She applied the colour to her top lip first, the trickier one, following the curve with a surgeon's precision.

"What it makes me think is that whoever wears this makeup will look like they've been _in_ a breeze, the whole making-up process impaired by high winds, so that, more than anything, the girl ends up looking…"

Betty smoothed the lipstick across her lower lip, then rolled her lips together gently, leaning back in her chair.

"…flawless."

She heard Jughead's voice catch and turned around quickly. He was staring at her, disconcertingly enrapt.

"Well, I'm not exactly―" Betty began to protest, but Jughead had shoved himself from the bed like a racing swimmer off the wall, taking her face firmly between his hands and kissing her before she could finish her sentence.

Startled and breathless, Betty inhaled sharply through her nose, that just-washed Jughead smell dragging her down into surrender. Her lips parted and suddenly Jughead was translating their body language into French, his tongue finding hers while his fingertips, stuttering with eagerness, traced the low neckline of her top. Betty closed her eyes to let her thoughts slow and her heartrate surge. She had time. She could kiss him for a while….

She stopped, pushing Jughead back by the shoulders with hands that had just begun to wind up around his back. Jughead straightened up from his awkward posture of leaning over her chair and Betty covered her mouth with her hand, suspended someplace between amusement and horror. Of course, she would never normally have touched her mouth after putting on lipstick, but most of that lipstick had already been transferred to Jughead.

A frantic giggle escaped her hand and Jughead looked into the mirror over Betty's head. He narrowed his eyes, but in concentration only, before rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Go ahead and laugh, but you're worse," he said, glancing down at her with an eyebrow raised. Betty's eyes widened and she twisted around.

She sat stunned for a moment, hands gripping the back of the chair she'd only managed to partway turn in her haste. Her perfect lines were ruined, her makeup smeared and her skin stained. She looked like she had when her mother had scrubbed the lipstick from her mouth months earlier. And, remembering that, she felt like it too. Betty lowered her eyes and extended a trembling hand for the packet of makeup wipes that sat in the corner of her vanity.

"No!" Jughead's tone was affronted. His hand landed on hers and Betty let her hand collapse down onto the tabletop under his palm. He took his hand back abruptly and she watched it plunge into the front pocket of his jeans.

Betty raised her eyes to his face in confusion. Jughead's free hand was needlessly adjusting the placement of his hat over his escaping black hair. He seemed almost embarrassed.

"I kind of like it," Jughead said softly, angling his face away just enough that he was able to snatch a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, the way he did when he was unsure. "You look very… avant-garde."

Propping her elbow on the vanity, Betty rolled her face against her palm, starting to smile at Jughead and then at her own reflection. Her whole mouth was blurred like a badly developed photograph, but the real eye-catcher was the creamy scarlet streak that stretched on a diagonal towards her chin.

"Not like a clown?" she asked quietly.

"No." Jughead shook his head defiantly.

"Not like one of Cheryl's undead?" Betty drew up her top lip as though to expose vampiric fangs.

"No." He gripped the back of her chair and leaned forward until his nose pressed into the soft slant under her jaw. In the mirror, she saw that Jughead's eyes were almost closed, though not sleepily.

"Just avant-garde?" Betty's voice was a wisp with Jughead so close. Her heart beat hard.

"Not just," he said, his words vibrating up to her ear. "Also sexy." His lips touched her neck and Betty saw Jughead's far shoulder drop as he applied convincing pressure.

She stretched her arms above her head, linking them loosely behind Jughead's neck. His eyes darted to meet hers in the mirror, realizing she was watching him―more than that, _staring_ at him. Betty felt his breath against her skin and he held her gaze carefully as his hands left the chair to wrap delicately around her upper arms. She knew it was warm, but suddenly Jughead was giving her goosebumps.

His palms moved down, squeezing the outside of her shoulders before getting into less neutral territory. Betty released a shivering exhale when he took no pains to avoid stroking his fingers around the outer curve of her breasts on the path to her ribcage. She suddenly pictured the Dirty Dancing poster that used to hang on her wall, the frozen frame of Baby and Johnny posed so close to the way she and Jughead were positioned now… except that they had been standing. Betty couldn't imagine how being touched this way had made Baby laugh.

Jughead's hands smoothed over the bend of her waist and Betty sighed, loudly and unintentionally. She unhooked one of her hands, rubbing her thumb below her lower lip to swipe away some of the excess lipstick. Jughead groaned next to her ear, smoothing his palms up her torso to fill his hands with the malleable weight of her breasts. Now Betty couldn't meet his eye, the combination of his intense gaze and deliberate caress overwhelming her.

The instant she looked away, Jughead's hands left her chest to spin Betty around so she was facing him. He tugged her up, both of her hands in his as he fumbled for her grasp, and kneed her chair away as he closed in, forcing her back into the edge of the tabletop before hoisting her bodily onto the surface. Plastic cases clacked and rolled when Betty swept her hands behind her, clearing the makeup away. She couldn't spare them a single glance, not with Jughead tipping her chin up to kiss her so deeply and stepping between her parted legs. His other hand was hot on the small of her back where her tank top had scrunched up.

Betty gasped into his mouth, dragging Jughead closer with her thighs until she could feel him pressing firmly against the front of her jean shorts. She got her fingers under the hem of his long-sleeved white shirt, easing it up as she appreciatively explored the muscles of his back and shoulders. Jughead broke from her, letting Betty wrestle the bunched up sleeves from his arms, then going for her shirt while her arms were still away from her body. This partial disrobing was rushed and breathless, leaving Betty's pulse zinging straight from her heart to her damping core like a sledgehammer game on a fairground midway.

Jughead pushed his fingers into the resistance of her product-stiffened hair and pressed his chest to hers, slanting into Betty more and more until the back of her head bumped the mirror and she had to laugh at how carried away he'd gotten.

"Juggy," she got out, between the short, pressing kisses he was now giving her. "Mirror."

The message wasn't getting through, so Betty caught his other hand and guided it up past her shoulder until it was flat to the glass surface. Jughead opened his darkening blue eyes and, between the hunger in them and the way his body was braced around hers, Betty felt an impatient upwelling of desire. His gaze slipped sideways as Betty assumed he caught sight of his flushed, two-dimensional doppelgänger, then returned to her face. A mischievous smile ticked the corner of his mouth just ahead of him grabbing her tightly by the hips and jerking her forward.

Jughead let Betty stand there, inches from her, smirking at her, as he negotiated the elastic from her ponytail (her hair fell, but didn't fully untwist) and unclasped her bra, tossing it lightly off to the side. His palm touched her back where the band of her bra had been, pressing her against him, and Betty ran her hands up his arms, falling upwards into a long, slow kiss.

It was distracting enough, and Betty let time go by, revelling in the feel of Jughead's skin, his warmth, his masculine presence in her bedroom. Underneath that though, she knew the way they were embracing now couldn't possibly have been the end goal his rascally smirk had warned of. She pulled out of the kiss, her breath shaking, and watched Jughead bite his lower lip in concentration as he stroked down her sides to her hips, then across her bare stomach.

Betty shaped her hands to his jaw, angling him back to her, and this time Jughead's want was closer to the surface when he kissed her. She responded roughly, even holding his face tighter, but Jughead shifted out of her grasp before stepping back just enough to turn her deliberately by her hips. She felt his erection very clearly when he nudged his hips back against hers.

At first, Betty didn't want to look up, trying to make sense out of the scattered pattern of pencils, tubes, and compacts on the table instead of finding her own face in the mirror. She didn't acknowledge Jughead either, though she both felt and heard him panting near her ear. His lips ran lightly down her neck and his arms came around her. If that wasn't enough to speak for his intentions, there was the stiffening reminder indenting the soft denim of the back of her shorts. She thought she might be hovering precariously in a sort of calm before the storm.

As slowly as she could, Betty returned Jughead's pressure and nearly jumped at the grating groan that parted his lips against her hair. Either her action or his noise had animated his hands, which took an unswerving path to the button of her shorts. Now seemed like the right time to look up. Betty took in the pair of their reddened faces. Jughead's eyes were a little uncertain when his gaze found hers and she put a hand (shaking with excited anticipation) over his, helping him wiggle the button from its loop. She backed off her hold, sliding her palms up his forearms, afraid that guiding his fingers to lower the zipper would have her digging her nails into his hands instead of her own. He accomplished it with a sharp tug and arousal seemed to constrict the muscles between Betty's legs, hyper-aware of his potential next moves as she was.

Jughead folded back the opening of her shorts like he was turning the pages of a thick-papered book. His other hand swirled up over her stomach to smooth around the underside of her breast, never quite settling. Betty figured he was giving this hand free rein to balance out the way he was trying so hard to control the motions of the other hand. She didn't want him to hold back, as much as she was enjoying the focused look on his face, the parted lips and dark swing of his hair, but kept as still as she could while Jughead explored, controlling everything but the heave of her chest, which couldn't be helped.

He tunneled his fingers between her shorts and underwear and Betty gasped for all she was worth when, palm cradled beneath her, Jughead pressed up. Her hands left his arms to clamp around the narrow edge of her vanity. Finally, she had a good idea of how wet she was, because she could feel the material slip. From behind, Jughead rubbed against her and she knew his fingers must be getting soaked through the cotton.

"Juggy?" Her voice was unsteady, shaking his attention. He stopped staring at the reflection of his hand, or wrist at least, since the rest of it disappeared into pale denim, and met her eyes in the mirror.

Betty wrapped her fingers around Jughead's other hand, which had started to pass roughly back and forth over her nipple, and dragged it down. She got her hand out of the way as Jughead's fingers curled under, unmediated by the thin layer of her underwear. She made a noise that refused to form into a word and Jughead pushed further, teasing her opening.

Unable to restrain herself, Betty rocked against his palm, feeling the slickness of her arousal painted across her clit, transferred by Jughead's almost frictionless hand. Jughead made a rasping sound like he was in the grips of hypothermia and wriggled both hands out, yanking Betty's clothing to the floor. She turned quickly, ready to lean back on the tabletop and let him all the way in, but Jughead was kicking his way out of his own layers and grabbing her desperately under her thighs, lifting her feet off the floor.

Betty wobbled and clung to him, her hold firm on the back of his neck. He carried her to the space of empty wall next to the vanity, pinning her between the stability of the vertical surface and his body. Even hairspray couldn't withstand this and Betty's head leaned comfortably back against the wall. Jughead grinned at her and she couldn't contain her answering smile. She was practically bouncing in his arms.

Tucking one arm under her (Betty struggled not to let her eyes roll back in pleasure as she felt the ripple of muscle run through his limb), Jughead aligned their hips. She felt the firm head of him slipping against her until he caught her up again in both arms and let his hips do the final maneuvering, pushing thickly inside.

"Woo!" Jughead cried out exultantly to her ceiling. Betty vibrated with laughter until it became a more serious moan, feeling him press into her perfectly. He quieted immediately; she assumed it was a reaction to her body's reflexive internal squeeze. He worked around her irresistible grip, drawing shallowly in and out. Betty looked over Jughead's shoulder at the pink-accented room of her childhood. Oh, it was so wrong. The next thrust was fast and deep. God, it was so right.

"Shhh!" she hissed, smiling.

Jughead stilled, startled. Betty clenched the muscles of her thighs to hold his hips more securely. She could guess what he was thinking.

"No." She shook her head for emphasis. "Nobody's home." Jughead sighed. "But we _do_ have neighbours."

"Was I that loud?" He didn't exactly sound sheepish.

"I think Whitman's ghost is coming over to congratulate you on your barbaric yawp."

"I'll show _you_ barbaric."

Before Betty could explain that she hadn't been taunting him, Jughead flicked his hips sharply, at a greater angle, connecting with her g-spot. Her arms tugged him close and Jughead had to almost fight his way out of her grasp to carry on―but carry on he did. He nosed into Betty's hair, breathing hard, one sweaty hand holding her up while the other stroked surprisingly calmly across her lower back. She couldn't remember leaning away from the wall and further into his arms. She felt her thighs become vise-like without conscious effort, then slacken alarmingly, at the mercy of the way he was driving up into her.

Jughead was intent on her g-spot now and his battering thrusts had Betty's legs seeking purchase around him like his body was a rope she was trying to pull herself up. Her nails clipped his surging shoulder blades, then dug in a little when he made a noise that told her he liked it. She couldn't move his face away from the side of her head―the muscles in his neck were rigid―so Betty kissed up and down his neck, mumbling nearly incoherently about how good it felt, how much she loved him.

He rubbed against her more torturously and reassigned one hand to feel out her clit, scrubbing it under his fingertips. Betty's sweet reassurances turned into darker demands, telling him she needed it faster, rougher, and Jughead groaned his concession, sliding his cheek against hers then biting lightly at her neck.

The pleasure was rising unbearably and Betty realized she was bumping her hips down every time Jughead plunged upwards. Her fingers were quivering against the back of his neck and between the strands of his pitch black hair. There was a tick in her lower body that had her feet pointing and flicking out without her permission. And then there was an irrepressible reaction that put all of her other shiverings to shame. Closing her eyes, Betty planted a palm on his chest and nearly pushed him away as her release overcame her. Jughead bucked sharply and called her name, his thick voice full of amazement.

Betty's eyes opened when she felt herself sliding down the wall, close to freefall with the speed at which Jughead was collapsing. He folded his legs under him, drawing Betty against his chest as she slumped down to be the summit of the heap he'd crumpled into. They sat for a second and then both moved at once, untangling their limbs to flop out, un-contorted, side by side on the carpet. Betty rolled close, smiling into Jughead's chest as he patted uncoordinatedly at her hair.

She groaned, her fingers sliding over his.

"Does it look salvageable?" Betty lifted her head so that Jughead could see her more easily.

"I'm not an expert…" He seemed to be pausing, still catching his breath, but as Betty waited she gathered that his incomplete statement was a death sentence for her unflatteringly tousled hair. She sighed. It wasn't the end of the world.

"And my face?"

"Lovely." Jughead cupped her cheek tenderly. Betty banged her head against his shoulder.

"So the makeup's a mess too?"

"If there were much left, you might be able to say that."

Betty glanced up at him and Jughead was grinning. He shifted his eyes from the ceiling to meet hers.

"Basically, then, I look like I've already been to whatever gruelling practice Cheryl has planned?"

"Mhmm." Jughead's lips were on her forehead.

"I guess I have to start again."

Betty reached for the edge of the vanity, struggling to sit up. Her legs felt disconnected from her body.

"Well…" said Jughead. She stared down at him. There was that mischievous look again. "…since there's no hope of saving it… and since you don't look thoroughly 'breezy' yet."

Betty could see that he was trying to get her to speak for him. She brushed a strand of dark hair away from his face. His eyes were the blue of exotic seas on travel posters. She outlined his mouth with her fingertips, lingering on his lower lip.

"You think we should…" she began.

"Hey, today is supposed to be about practice, right? And I did say I came over to help you."

Betty laughed.

"You admitted that was a lie."

"I changed my mind."

He caught her around the waist and pulled her back down. There was still time, so she didn't resist.

* * *

 **Author's Note:  
**

So I wasn't ready for summer to be over for Jughead and Betty just yet. If you've read my other M-rated J & B one-shots, you might be aware that these tend to get away from me. I write 500 words, then I write 500 more words, then 500 more, 500 more, etc. etc. until I end up with roughly 4000. Whoops.

Again, I hope you enjoyed it and can laugh along with me to the good-natured jab I took at the show's unsubtle CoverGirl product placement.

Thanks for reading!


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